Archive for the ‘Undara volcanic’ Category

We spent the Easter long week end in Palm Cove, just outside Cairns, in tropical Queensland (2000km North of Brisbane – 2 hours flight). We spent 5 nights at the Sea Temple resort, on the beach. Lovely place and beautiful weather. Our Brisbane friends Basia and Chris and their son Gabriel there as well. We took profit of our stay to visit the surroundings.

Palm Cove Beach

Beach “character” enjoying the sunset, he insisted to be photographed, appeared to be of Dutch origin, was born in Dordrecht, migrated to Australia with his parents at the age of 5, still speaks some Dutch

beautiful frog, in hotel backyard

on the way to Port Douglas

Wanda, Chris, Basia

Stings are a problem in the summer, it is dangerous to enter the water during that period of time. Nothing is ever perfect, there always must be a twist somewhere… No problem for those who don’t swim…

Pebbly Beach

Interdiction d’emporter des galets

Northern nail-tail walliby (Onychogalea unguifera) – Port Douglas zoo

Tree-kangaroo (Drendolagus)

Port Douglas – Michael, Wanda, Helen, Basia and Gabriel

Michael and Helen are friends of Wanda. They live in Port Douglas. Wanda knows Michael since many years, from the time he was in Europe.

Michael, Wanda and Helen

Michael and Helen own and operate Radio Port Douglas 107.1 & 90.9 FM. The radio has a limited reach but they also broadcast on Internet. Check on this radio if you wish. They play excellent music and they also have live talkshows in the morning.

One hundred and ninety thousand years ago the earth trembled, the sky darkened and flaming foutains of lava bathed the land in a firey glow. Undara had awoken. Wave after wave of molten lava spewed from the crater and flowed across the land incinerating everything in its path. Toes of lava, searching out fro easy ways to flow, found their way into the low contours of the land, forming rivers of molten rock which wound their way across the now blackened landscape.

The air begun to cool the surface changing it from scarlet to a sullen crimson and finally to a solid black crust. Underneath the lava continued to flow. Now insulated from the surrounding cooler environment, the lava continued to flow beneath the surface in the lava tube carying it further and further from the carter, flooding more and more land as it went.

The eruption slowed then stopped. The lava flowed out the far end of the tubes, leaving hollow tunnels hidden below the devastated land.

Undara means a long way in Aboriginal language. One of the lava flows from Undara extends more than 160kms making it the longest lava flow on planet Earth from a single volcanic crater in modern geological time: one tube formed by the flow extended about 100kms and some sections are accessible.